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Petrunkevitch 
The  Freedom  of  the  Will 


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JRI  Itt^  II  OUMIISirik-i 

By  ALEXANDER  PETRUNKEVIC 


THE 

FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL. 


A  STUDY  IN  MATERIALISM. 


By  ALEXANDER  PETRUNKEVICH,  Ph.  D. 


PM4 


§■ 


TO    MY     FATHER-IN-LAW,     MR.    E.     F.    HARTSHORN. 

WHOSE  WHOLE  LIFE  IS  AN  EXAMPLE  OF 

FREE  WILL,  I  DEDICATE 

THIS  STUDY. 


4    I  ■     kCQOQ 


THE    FREEDOM    OF    THE    WILL. 
A  STUDY  IN  MATERIALISM 

EY 

ALEXANDER    PETRUNKEVITCH.    Ph.  D. 


Materialism  has  come  into  discredit.  Theology  lias  always 
led  a  strong  fight  against  it,  declaring  the  first  cause  to  be  the 
Divine  Power;  Philosophy  has  repeatedly  and  vigorously  at- 
tacked it  and  has  finally  inflicted  a  deadly  blow  in  the  discovery 
of  its  weakest  point— the  heel  of  Achilles  of  materialism— Con- 
sciousness and  Free  Will.  The  general  public,  too,  looks  with 
abhorrence  on  materialism,  dreading  and  combating  it  like  an 
ulcer;  although  not  sufficiently  acquainted  either  with  the  facts 
upon  which  materialism  is  based  or  with  its  philosophic  merits 
and  errors,  it  feels  darkly  the  presence  of  a  danger  to  society  in 
the  principle  of  inexorable,  pre-established  Necessity. 

Indeed,  the  life  of  materialism  as  taught  by  Laplace,  La- 
grange and  the  authors  of  the  "System  of  Nature"1  is  doomed. 
It  has  given  way  before  new  monistic  constructions  and  dualistic 
principles.  Among  the  former,  Parallelism,  especially,  which 
offers  a  more  plausible  explanation  of  many  psychic  phenomena, 
is  now  gaining  ground  rapidly  in  philosophy  and  science. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  criticize  either  of  these  philosophic 
systems;  the  history  of  materialism,  also,  has  been  made  the  sub- 
ject of  much  study  and  is  sufficiently  well  known.2  What  1 
desire  to  attempt  is  to  save  Materialism  as  a  philosophic  doc- 
trine; to  give  it  a  new  form  ;  to  show  that  Necessity  is  not  essen- 
tial to  Materialism;  to  do  away  with  the  error  contained  in  the 
law  of  causality,  an  error  which,  strange  to  say,  originated  in 
the  minds  of  mathematicians  and  physicists;  and  finally  to 
introduce  a  new  principle  into  the  explanation  of  physical  and 
psychical  phenomena. 

i  ••Sv^teme  cle  la  Nature  ou  des  lois  du  monde  physique  et  du  monde  moral  par  feu 
M.  Mirabaud."  1770.  This  book  is  supposed  to  nave  been  written  by  Baron  von  Hol- 
bach,  (iriuiiu.  and  others,  probably  Diderot,  Lagrange  and  Naigeau. 

->  To  those  especially  interested  in  the  history  and  criticism  of  materialism  I 
would    recommend    F.    A.'  Lange's    -(ieschichte  des  Materialismus,"  1002. 


To  fulfill  all  this,  it  will  be  necessary  (1)  to  substitute  for 
the  law  of  causality  a  new  law  and  (2)  to  show  that  free  will 
really  exists,  being  not  the  mere  self-deception  of  a  mind  una- 
ware of  the  hidden,  causally  necessitated  Desire.  I  am  sensible 
of  the  difficulties  that  confront  me  in  such  an  attempt.  Yet  if 
science  does  not  wish  to  confine  itself  to  a  mere  gathering  of 
facts,  it  must  seek  for  an  understanding  of  the  surrounding- 
world  which  would  otherwise  become  for  it  as  dry  and  lifeless 
as  a  museum  collection  !  In  studying  the  laws  which  govern  the 
origin  and  development  of  living  beings,  I  am  necessarily  con- 
fronted with  questions  of  a  more  general  character,  and  the  mind 
going  from  one  phenomenon  to  another  and  from  one  cause  to 
another,  seeks  a  general  principle. 

This  is  the  way  Theology  has  gone  since  time  immemorial 
in  deriving  the  causal  evidence  of  the  existence  of  God  from  the 
law  of  causality.  In  reasoning  that  each  effect  has  its  cause 
which  is  in  turn  the  effect  of  another  cause  having  again  a  cause 
of  its  own  and  so  on,  the  theologians  declared  the  First  Cause, 
the  Cause  of  all  causes,  to  be  the  One  who  is  alone  His  own 
cause.  But  besides  the  fallacy  involved  in  the  conception  of 
anything  as  being  its  own  cause,  they  failed  to  consider  that  all 
the  infinite  effects  which  take  place  at  a  given  moment  in  the 
world,  have  infinite  causes  which  produced  them  and  which  are 
themselves,  in  turn,  the  effects  of  infinite  causes  and  so  on  to 
eternity,  thus  leaving  no  room  for  the  idea  of  a  beginning  in  one 
cause.  But  we  start  with  the  proposition  that  innumerable 
causes  have  existed  in  infiuito  and  that  these  causes  were  always 
of  a  material  nature,  and  have  to  consider  what  influence  this 
may  have  upon  the  effects. 

It  was  this  law  of  causality  which  brought  the  greatest 
among  the  materialists  to  their  doctrine  of  the  necessity  of  all 
that  occurs  in  the  world.  The  best  expression  of  this  idea  is  to 
be  found  in  the  essay  by  Laplace  upon  the  probabilities.3  Al- 
though frequently  quoted,  the  words  of  Laplace  seem  to  me  so 
important,  that  I  cannot  refrain  from  reproducing  them  here. 

"All  events,  even  those  which  by  reason  of  their  trivality 
"may  not  seem  to  be  subject  to  the  great  laws  of  nature, are  a  con- 
"sequence  of  these  as  inevitable  as  the  revolutions  of  the  sun.  In 
"our  ignorance  of  the  bonds  that  unite  them  to  the  whole  system 
"of  the  universe,  we  have  made  them  dependent  either  upon  final 
"causes  or  upon  chance,  according  as  they  occur  and  succeed  one 

•3  P.  8.  de  Laplace,   ICssai   philosophique  sur  les  probabilites. 


"another  with  regularity  or  without  apparent  order;  but  these 
"imaginary  causes  have  continuously  receded  with  the  bounds 
"of  our  knowledge  and  have  completely  disappeared  before  that 
"sane  philosophy  which  sees  in  them  but  an  expression  of  our 
"ignorance  of  the  real  causes.  The  occurrences  of  the  present 
"have  a  connection  with  those  that  preceded  them  based  upon  the 
"manifest  principle  that  a  thing  cannot  commence  to  exist  with- 
"out  a  cause  which  produced  it.  This  axiom,  known  under  the 
"name  of  the  'principle  of  the  sufficient  reason,'  applies  even  to 
"the  most  insignificant  acts.  To  these  the  freest  possible  will 
"could  not  give  birth  without  a  determining  motive,  for  if,  all 
"the  circumstances  in  two  situations  being  identical,  it  should 
"in  the  one  act  and  in  the  other  abstain  from  acting,  its  choice 
"Avould  be  an  effect  without  a  cause.  . .  .The  contrary  opinion  is 
"an  illusion  of  the  mind  which  loses  from  view  among  indifferent 
"things,  the  fugitive  reasons  for  the  choice  of  the  will  and  be- 
lieves this  choice  to  be  self-determining  and  without  motives. 

"We  have,  therefore,  to  consider  the  present  state  of  the  uni- 
"verse  as  the  effect  of  a  preceding  state  and  as  the  cause  of  that 
"which  is  to  follow.  An  intelligence  which  would  for  a  given 
"moment  know  all  the  forces  animating  nature  and  the  respec- 
tive states  of  the  beings  of  which  it  is  composed,  if,  furthermore, 
"it  should  be  great  enough  to  subject  these  given  conditions  to 
"analysis,  would  embrace  in  a  single  formula  the  movements  of 
"the  greatest  of  the  world-bodies  and  those  of  the  smallest  atom. 
"To  it  nothing  would  be  uncertain  and  the  future  as  the  past 
"would  be  present  before  its  eyes." 

This  is  indeed  a  logical,  a  binding  conclusion  for  one  who 
assumes  that  every  effect  has  a  necessary  cause  and  itself  is  the 
cause  of  another,  necessary  effect.  But  is  this  in  reality  so?  If 
we  admit — aud  this  I  do  not  dispute — that  every  effect  has  its 
cause,  does  it  follow  that  we  may  reverse  this  affirmation  and 
say  that  this  effect  is  the  necessary  effect  of  its  cause?  that  it  is 
the  only  possible  effect  of  this  cause?  But  this  is  the  general 
belief;  this  is  the  axiom  upon  which  everything  is  based,  mathe- 
matics and  physics,  biology  as  well  as  psychology.  It  was  this 
principle  which  brought  the  materialists  to  their  doctrine  of  the 
necessity  of  all  being  and  which  has  given  to  materialism  the 
"teinte"  of  fatalism.  Strange  as  this  question  may  seem,  which 
to  the  best  of  my  belief  I  am  the  first  to  bring  forward,  it  should 
be  considered  with  all  possible  attention.  The  answer,  as  we 
shall  see,  will  differ  from  the  common  conception. 


Does  in  truth  every  cause,  so  to  say,  resolve  itself  into  a 
single  effect,  the  one  possible  effect  of  this  cause  or  are  under 
certain  circumstances  or  perhaps  even  normally,  other  effects 
possible,  too?  How  does  it  happen  that  the  greater  the  phe- 
nomena or  the  more  complicated  they  are,  the  more  room  we 
have  to  leave  for  error  in  our  calculations?  Why  does  the  an- 
swer to  stimuli,  so  definite  in  lower  organisms,  become  gradually 
more  and  more  indefinite  with  the  complication  of  the  body  in 
higher  animals,  until  it  finally  begins  to  produce  on  us  the 
impression  of  what  is  commonly  understood  under  free  will? 

In  studying  the  questions  of  heredity,  in  subjecting  to  criti- 
cal analysis  the  phenomena  of  growth  and  development,  I  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  all  of  these  phenomena  are  governed  by  a 
general  law  which  I  called :  "The  principle  of  the  limits  of  pos- 
sible oscillations.',4  I  tried  to  show  that  each  stage  of  an  organ- 
ism, from  its  beginning  as  an  eg,g;  and  to  its  last  moment  as  a 
perceptibly  living  being  has  a  structure  definite  for  each  separate 
stage,  but  subject  to  oscillations  within  certain  limits  which 
cannot  be  transgressed  without  a  change  or  destruction  of  the 
stage  in  question,  leading  to  a  consequent  change  of  its  future 
fate.    I  showed  that  these  limits  are  largest  for  the  egg  and  also 

4  A  Petrunkewitsch,  Gedanken  uber  Vererbung.  Freiburg  i-B.  1904.  Verlag  von 
Speyer  &  Kaerner. 

For  the  benefit  of  those  unacquainted  with  this  book  I  give  here  a  brief  summary 
of  the  results  to  which  I  came. 

1.  There  is  no  standstill  in  the  life  of  an  organism,  as  there  is  none  in  the  whole 
universe,  the  structure,  i.  c,  both  body  and  "Psyche"  of  an  organism  changing 
continuously. 

2.  There  are  therefore  no  real  individuals,  but  only  mechanical  "Systems"  more  or 
less  stable  and  producing  on  us  the  impression  of  real  "Individuals"  whenever 
(his  stability  attains  its  highest  point,  as  for  example  in  man. 

3.  Development  consists  of  the  changes  which  start  in  the  egg  and  which  lead  to 
an  approximate  repetition  of  the  parental   life  cycle. 

4.  Heredity  cannot  always  be  differentiated  with  sufficient  ground  from  the 
changes  caused  by  the  influence  of  the  environment,  and  must  therefore  be 
restricted  to  the-  so-called  "Keimbahn".  Heredity  is  then  to  be  defined  as  the 
process  which  leads  to  the  production  of  germcells  in  the  offspring  .similar  to 
those  in  the  parents.  (Of  germcells  only,  not  of  the  whole  organism  as  is  gen- 
erally accepted). 

5.  Every  cell  has  a  structure  which  varies  within  definite  limits  only.  Size  and 
Form  are  functions  of  the  structure  and  obey  eo  ipso  the  same  law.  The  struc- 
ture and  number  of  cell  organs,  the  distances  between  them  and  their  relations 
to  each  other  obey  also  the  same  law. 

«.  The  space  for  possible  oscillations  within  the  limits  I  call  the  amplitude.  It  Is 
largest  for  the  egg  and  diminishes  with  the  increasing  number  of  cells  which 
help    mutually    to    decrease    their    respective  amplitudes. 

7.  Transgression  of  an  amplitude  leads  to  the  formation  of  a  new  system  with  new 
amplitudes,  as  is  always  the  case  in  each  new  staj:e  of  development,  in  the  forma- 
tion of  monstrosities  aud  in  the  changes  leading  to  destruction  of  the  organism. 

S.  All  eggs  of  a  species  have  the  same  amplitude,  but  each  individual  egg  differs 
within  the  possible  limits  from  anotber  egg  of  the  same  species.  These  possible 
oscillations  give  rise  to  endogenous  variations. 

it.    Fnvironment  may  produce  changes  during    development    thus    giving    origin     to 

exogenous  variations. 
10.  When  the  structure  of  the  eggs  produced  by  an  offspring  has  an  amplitude 
differing  from  that  of  the  eggs  produced  by  the  parent,  and  when  the  eggs  with 
such  new  amplitudes  are  moreover  capable  of  development,  this  development  will 
result  in  a  "mutation."  The  difference  between  the  variations  and  the  muta- 
tions is  that  the  variations  have  the  same  amplitude  common  to  them  all,  while 
the  mutations  have  differing  amplitudes,  within  which  other  variations  are 
possible. 


fcow  they  are  gradually  more  and  more  restricted  with  the  devel- 
opment of  the  organism,  thus  avoiding  the  danger  of  premature 
destruction  which  would  inevitably  result  if  the  limits  should 
grow. 

According  to  this  conception  then,  the  presence  of  oscilla- 
tions within  an  amplitude,  I  e.,  within  the  space  between  the 
possible  limits,  might  be  considered  to  be  a  special  characteristic 
of  living  beings.  I  thought  really  to  have  found  here  a  difference 
between  the  living  organisms  and  inorganic  matter. 

But  after  a  long  weighing  of  the  facts  T  have  now  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  this  principle  of  the  limits  of  possible  oscil- 
lations extends  much  further  than  T  originally  supposed  and 
together  with  another  still  broader  principle  which  I  shall 
-rail  the  "Principle  <tf  plural  effects"  governs  equally  the  whole 
«>f  nature,  organic  as  well  as  inorganic.  The  two  principles  may 
be  formulated  as  follows: 

/fa  P    Every  cause  is  poteiiially  capable  of  producing 
— "Several  effects, 

PRINCIPLE  OF  PLURAL  EFFECTS. 

<b)  The  number  and  the  nature  of  the  effects  which 
actually  take  place  may  rary  within  definite  lim- 
it* only,  or  in  applying  the  once  chosen  terminol- 
ogy, within  the  specific  amplitude  of  the  cause, 

PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LIMITS  OF  POSSIBLE 
OSCILLATIONS. 

Should  anyone  doubt  the  truth  of  these  principles  and  ask 
for  an  indisputable  proof,  I  would  refer  him  to  mathematics, 
where  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  such  examples  ought  to  per- 
suade the  most  critical  mind.  Thus  a  2  may  be  an  effect  of 
V  *~  ,  having  in  this  case  the  VI  for  a  necessary  cause. 
Hut  this  proposition  may  not  be  reversed,  i  e.,  the  2  is  not  the 
only  possible  effect  of  V  "T  ;  we  know,  indeed,  that  there  is 
another  solution  possible,  another  effect,  and  this  is  —  2  (minus 
two).  We  therefore  have  here  two  possible  effects  of  one  and 
the  same  cause,  effects  which  can  take  place  either  separately 

as  single  effects,  or  together.  The  following  root  yV^  has 
four  possible  solutions  or  effects,  of  which  two  are  rational 
+  V~%       and       —  V~l       and  two  irrational      4-    V—Vz    and 


-^  |>32  /'  Many  equations  have  several 'possible  solutions  pi,  i 
others  the  number  of  possible  solutions  is  reduced  by  the  improb- 
ability or  irrationality  of  some  of  them.  Thus  the  commons 
equation  of  the  parabola  y2=2px  gives  one  curve,  the  negative 
quantities  for  the  x  being  impossible  because  of-  the  resulting 
irrational  quantities  for  the  y — axis.  Such  an  exclusion  of 
solutions  happens  whenever  the  final  formula  gives  an  answer 
broader  than  the  question  demanded;  I  do  not  want  to  give 
more  examples,,  as  everyone  may  find  an  abundance  of  them  in 
any  book  on  mathematical  questions.  This  however  may  be 
added,  that  some  equations  with'  several  unknown  quantities 
have  an  unlimited  or  at  any  rate  a  very  great  number  of  solu- 
tions, giving  growing  values  to  one  of  the  unknown  quantities,, 
each  satisfying  the  equation.  A  nice  example  of  a  formula  that 
satisfies  many  solutions  of  which  each  again  gives  many  possi- 
bilities, is  that  comprising  ellips,  parabola  and  hyperbola 
r=  -,— ^ —    ,  where     r     and     *   are  polar  co-ordinates. 

What  is  true  of  mathematics  must  also  be  true  of  physics 
and  the  other  sciences,  but  things  being  limited,  the  number  of 
possibilities  or  possible  effects  must  likewise  be  limited,  indeed 
even  more  limited  than  in  pure  mathematics.  If  we  do  not  per- 
ceive the  various  effects  of  the  same  cause,  it  is  because  we  do* 
not  see  the  connection  between  them  and  attribute  to  the  various 
effects  separate  causes,  deceived  by  our  prejudice;  or  it  is  also 
possible  that  the  several  possibilities  were  annuled  in  favor  of 
a  single  effect,  one  into  which  the  cause  appears  then  fully  to 
resolve  itself.  If  a  moving  ball  strikes  a  ball  which  is  in  a  state 
of  rest,  the  latter  will  acquire  a  certain  velocity,  this  motion 
being  an  effect  of  the  impact.  Yet  the  same  impact  will  pro- 
duce a  certain  heat  in  both  balls.  Thus  the  energy  will  be  partly 
transferred  to  the  ball  and  partly  transformed,  both  phenomena 
being  the  results  or  effects  of  the  same  cause.  This  is  why  one 
kind  of  energy  cannot  practically  be  fully  transformed  into 
another  kind  of  energy,  say  light  into  electricity  or  heat,  and 
why  all  experiments  in  this  line  show  a  greater  or  smaller 
error.  The  cause  of  this  lies  in  the  fact  that  each  kind  of  energy 
can  be  transformed  into  every  other  kind  of  energy,  the  result 
being  that  it  will  be  transformed  into  all  other  kinds  in  certain 
quantities  simultaneously;  the  quantity  of  each  kind,  that  is 

n  mn 

,     (  l/m  =  l/a  .      .       , 

-     .6  We  see  why  the  common  conception  that       i/-  is- inadequate  since 

it  corresponds  only  to  one-half  of  the  possible  solutions. 


•each  separate  effect  will  depend  upon  the  giyen  circumstances. 

In  physics  as  in  mathematics  one  and  the  same  effect  may 
be  produced  by  different  causes;  bat  it  is  evident  that  the  other 
possible  effects  of  these  causes  will  be  different.  A  4  may  be 
the  result  of  addition  of  1  +  3,  or  of  subtraction  of  5  —  1,  or  of 
extracting  the  square  root  of  1(>;  a  certain  amount  of  electric 
current  may  have  as  its  cause  light  or  chemical  changes  etc 
It  follows  that  a  certain  state  of  things,  a  system,  could  be 
obtained  in  different  ways,  and  that  the  present  state  of  the 
whole  world  might  have  had  a  combination  of  causes  differing 
from  that  which  in  reality  took  place. 

We  therefore  should  make  a  great  mistake  in  saying  that  j 
every  effect  has  a  necessary  cause,  since  several  effects  could 
have  been  produced  by  the  same  cause,  or  the  same  effect  by  a 
different  cause.  We  may  only  say  that  every  effect  necessarily 
has  a  cause.  The  principle  of  sufficient  reason  is  true  only  when 
thus  formulated. 

In  the  same  manner  we  may  not  reverse  the  sentence  and 
say  that  every  cause  has  a  necessary  effect,  since  it  might  have 
had  another  or  several  other  effects.     On  the  contrary  we  mustl 
say  that  each  cause  necessarily  resolves  itself  into  several  effects,  1 
some  of  which  may  be  imperceptible  for  our  senses  or  instru-  J 
ments,  or  obscured  by  interfering  phenomena.     The  relation 
between  the  effects  will  in  each  case  lie  different  and  will  depend 
upon  circumstances. 

Logically  the  conception  that  a  cause  has  many  possible  ) 
effects  is  broader  than  the  common  conception  that  a  cause  has  \ 
a  single  effect  only.  The  latter  is  therefore  only  a  particular 
case  under  a  broader  law.  The  content  of  the  former  being 
broader,  it  naturally  governs  a  larger  number  of  phenomena. 
Every  good  experimenter  tries  to  eliminate  in  his  experiments 
not  only  unnecessary  forces,  /.  c.  causes,  but  also  possible  effects 
which  might  take  place  and  obscure  the  results  of  the  experi- 
ment. Yet  no  one  has  thought  of  formulating  a  general  law 
induced  from  such  experience. 

The  same  fact  that  we  can  eliminate  certain  causes  or 
effects,  as  we  do  it  in  our  experiments,  ought  to  show  sufficiently 
the  existen^  Indeed,  it  would  be 

strange  to  suppose  that  each  time  an  experiment  is  repeated, 
the  necessary  state  of  the  whole  universe  is  such  as  to  allow  the 
experiment  to  succeed.  We  ought  rather  to  expect  that  in  the 
majority  of  cases  such  experiments  must  fail  owing  to  new  diV 


positions  of  the  causes.  Still  althoughexperimentsin  physics  and 
chemistry  invariably  succeed  when  the  experi mentor  takes  all 
necessary  precautions,  and  although  scientists  daily  make  many 
experiments  in  which  they  dispose  the  forces  as  their  aims 
require,  yet  just  among  scientists  the  belief  prevails  that  free 
will  does  not  exist  and  that  what  we  consider  to  be  such,  is  only 
a  false  interpretation  of  actions  which  depend  upon  causes 
beyond  our  control.  I  have  mentioned  already  the  words  of 
Laplace.  Herbert  Spencer,  too,  expresses  the  same  idea  :  "That 
"every  one  is  at  liberty  to  do  what  he  desires  to  do  (supposing 
"there  are  no  external  hindrances),  all  admit;  though  people 
"of  confused  ideas  commonly  suppose  this  to  be  the  thing  denied- 
"But  that  every  one  is  at  liberty  to  desire  or  not  to  desire,  which 
"is  the  real  proposition  involved  in  the  dogma  of  free  will,  is 
"negatived  as  much  by  the  analysis  of  consciousness  as  by  the 
"contents  of  the  preceding  chapter/'  (Origin  of  feelings  and  of 
reason).6 

Now  in  order  to  show  that  free  will  really  exists  and  is  not  a 
fallacy  due  to  confused  ideas,  we  may  choose  one  of  the  two 
following  ways:  either  to  show  that  the  desire  can  be  controlled 
at  liberty,  or  that  there  may  even  be  free  action  following  a 
desire  which  is  necessitated  in  us  by  causes  independent  of  our 
control.  If  it  is  possible  to  give  one  indisputable  example  in 
either  of  these  two  cases,  the  question  of  the  existence  of  free 
will  will  be  solved. 

I  choose  the  second  case  as  the  one  especially  denied  by 
Spencer.  Suppose  that  I  have  before  me  two  balls  of  equal 
size,  color  and  structure,  placed  near  to  each  other  in  such  a 
way  that  their  surroundings  are  practically  identic;) I,  say  on 
a  bare  table  in  an  empty  room.  This  is  essential  in  order  that 
my  action  may  be  influenced  as  little  as  possible  by  external 
differences.  Now  I  desire  to  choose  one  of  the  two  balls  merely 
for  the  purpose  of  demonstrating  that  I  can  freely  choose 
either  of  them.  No  matter  whether  the  desire  to  choose  was  free 
or  necessitated,  the  choice  itself  will  evidently  be  free.  It  will 
be  free  because  my  desire  is  not  to  choose  this  ball  or  that  ball, 
but  to  choose  either  of  them;  this  choice  will  be  free  because  I 
choose  one  of  the  balls  not  because  it  is  larger  or  better  or 
because  I  prefer  it  to  the  other,  but  because  I  am  moved  by  the 
desire  of  choice  for  the  mere  purpose  of  showing  the  free  will 

o  Herbert  Spencer,  Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol.  I.,  §21!>,  p.  500.     New  York  edition, 
1902. 


iu  the  choice.  This  purpose  is  not  the  cause  of  the  choice.  It  is 
the  cause  of  my  desire  to  choose.  The  choice  itself  has  for  its 
cause  a  conscious  decision  preceded  by  reasoning. 

In  this  case  then  the  popular  belief  that  "one  can  do  what 
one  desires,"  or  better  to  say,  can  choose  according  to  one's  free 
will,  is  beyond  doubt.  The  question  of  the  desire  itself  is  of 
course  much  more  complicated  and  difficult  of  answer.  In  the 
great  majority  of  cases  the  desire  will  originate  in  feelings  which 
lie  beyond  the  power  of  any  control.  But  we  must  not  forget 
that  the  sphere  of  free  will  is  a  very  restricted  one,  limited  to 
the  cases  of  conscious  choice.  It  is  always  preceded  by  reason- 
ing as  indeed  a  choice  without  previous  reasoning  is  impossible. 
Yet  reasoning  will  lead  sometimes  to  a  choice  directly  contrary 
to  the  strongest  immediate  desire  which  without  this  reasoning- 
would  undoubtedly  prevail.  The  dominant  desire  of  some  men 
is  that  of  supreme  power,  i.  e.  that  of  acting  according  to  their 
own  wishes.  Yet  in  practical  life  a  person,  dominated  by  such 
a  desire  but  having  no  such  power  by  birth,  will  often  suppress 
his  strongest  immediate  wishes  and  freely  subject  his  will  to 
the  will  of  another  in  order  to  further  the  success  of  his  ultimate 
object,  /.  e.  supreme  power.  He  will  on  every  such  occasion 
suffer  much,  but  will  act  nevertheless  according  to  the  dictates 
of  reason.  It  is  to  satisfy  the  reasoning  which  has  its  origin  iu 
the  collision  between  the  desire  of  power  and  circumstances,  and 
not  to  satisfy  the  desire  of  power  itself,  that  the  man  will  choose 
an  action  contrary  to  his  momentary  desire.  Should  any  one  ob- 
ject that  in  this  case  the  choice  is  a  necessary  effect  of  the  domi- 
nant desire  (that,  of  obtaining  finally  the  supreme  power),  he 
would  make  several  errors;  first,  that  of  separating  the  choice 
too  far  from  its  cause  without  being  able  to  show  the  whole 
chain  of  intermediary  effects  in  a  way  to  preclude  all  doubt ; 
then,  that  of  basing  his  conclusion  upon  a  contradiction,  be- 
cause the  immediate  desire  to  act  in  accordance  with  this  desire 
is  only  a  particular  instance  of  the  dominant  desire  for  supreme 
power,  which  I  have  defined  as  the  desire  for  acting  always  ac- 
cording to  one's  own  wishes.  Besides,  the  person  in  question 
confronted  by  the  necessity  of  choosing  has  to  consider  what  to 
choose.  If  the  cause  for  the  choice  were  not  this  reasoning,  then 
it  is  inexplicable,  how  he  could  avoid  choosing  what  he  most 
desires  at  the  moment. 

Having  thus  shown  that   free  choice  and  iu   consequence 


free  will  really  exists,  we  must  see,  how  its  origin  is  to  be  ex- 
plained from  the  materialistic  point  of  view. 

We  must  not  forget  that  free  will]  can  n^p^"*  u<Hf  fnily 
where  a  choice  is  possible.  If  there  is  no  choice,  if  the  action  is 
;i  necessary  effect  of  a  previous  cause,  there  co  ipso  can  be  no 
question  of  the  freedom  of  the  will,  But  more  than  that:  if  an 
"action  may  be  or  really  is  a  p.rr.p.M&a.ri/  effect  of  a  cause,  it  wi 1 1 
take  place  without  our  will,  so  to  say  passively,  if  I  may  use 
this" word  here"  "My  actions  would  be  necessary  effects  of  my 
desires  which  were,  in  turn,  necessary  effects  of  other  causes. 
There  is  no  T'Of11^ "for  AYIhf,  here  The  expression  "freedom  of 
the  will"  is  in  reality  a  useless  tautology,  because  jvill  without 
freedom  of  choice  is  mi  ahsurditv.  It  is  like  the  case  of  a  man,""* 
who  having  lost  both  of  his  legs  in  an  accident  is  asked  whether 
he  will  dance  or  take  a  walk! 

Another  phase  of  the  question  is  that  an  act  of  will  can  be 
only  a  conscious  act  preceded  by  reasoning.  This  is  evident 
from  all  that  has  been  said.  If  an  act  of  will  were  not  brought 
to  our  consciousness,  choice  which,  in  accordance  with  the  Prin- 
ciple of  plural  effects,  would  still  be  sometimes  possible,  would 
be  degraded  to  the  level  of  mere  CHANCE.  But  the  conscious 
choice  is  nothing  but  a  consequence  of  reasoning,  and  the  ques- 
tion of  the  free  will  is  thus  brought  back  to  the  question  of  the 
origin  of  reasoning.  This  is  clear  from  the  fact  that  every  action 
is  nothing  but  a  transformation  of  potential  energy  into  kinetic, 
into  motion,  and  reasonable  action  following  conscious  choice 
can  have  no  cause  other  than  reasoning. 

Some  people  may  still  think  that  this  conclusion  is  false. 
Is  it  not  generally  known  that  men  with  the  greatest  power  of 
reasoning  are  apt  to  possess  a  weak  will?  Is  it  not  an  every 
day  experience  that  will  and  reason  are  often  antagonistic?  But 
such  objections  are  of  a  quite  illusory  nature.  To  come  to  a 
decision  in  the  act  of  choice  may  require  a  longer  or  shorter 
time,  and  the  quicker  the  process  of  reasoning,  the  deeper  the 
insight  and  the  broader  the  knowledge  of  causes  and  of  possible 
effects — the  quicker  also  the  decision.  In  those  cases  where 
one  acts  seemingly  instantaneously,  his  action  is  due  either  to 
an  exceedingly  quick  reasoning  or  represents  a  necessary  effect 
without  the  interference  of  the  will,  in  which  case  the  action  is 
compulsory.  Where  the  final  action  of  a  person  contradicts 
his  reasoning,  there  we  doubtless  have  also  a  case  of  compulsory 
action. 


Every  action  is  in  a  sense  a  reaction,  inasmuch  as  every 
action  is  an  effect  of  a  cause.  Already  in  the  lowest  organisms 
each  action  possesses,  according  to  my  conception,  an  amplitude 
of  possible  oscillations.  Only  in  experiments,  where  the  forces 
are  limited  to  those  arbitrarily  chosen  by  the  experimentor,  the 
action,  the  effect  is  always  a  necessary  one.  But  where  the 
forces  are  not  limited  or  better  to  say  not  chosen  by  an  experi- 
mentor, there  the  same  action  shows  oscillations  within  the 
possible  limits  owing  to  the  amplitude  of  its  own  cause  and  of 
the  causes  of  the  surrounding  world.  Since  these  have  been 
always  infinite  in  number,  this  seems  to  afford  a  mechanical 
explanation  of  CHANGE.  The  more  complicated  an  organism 
is,  the  larger  the  number  of  phenomena  that  take  place  in  it 
simultaneously  in  consequence  of  stimulation  and  the  larger 
we  should  expect  the  number  of  possible  effects  or  reactions  to 
be.  This  is  only  approximately  so.  There  is  no  summation  of 
all  the  amplitudes  of  the  separate  causes.  The  many  phenomena 
standing  in  relation  to  each  other  determine  each  other  and  thus 
limit  an  excess  in  the  growth  of  possibilities.  In  the  end  the 
choice  in  each  case  is  limited  to  several  possibilities  only.  If 
THOUGHT  is  a  form  of  energy  into  which  other  forms  of  energy 
known  to  physics  are  converted  in  our  brain,  then  we  have  in 
the  two  principles  an  adequate  explanation  of  the  fact,  thai 
choice  is  sometimes  possible.  It  is  a  mechanical,  materialistic 
explanation  of  the  freedom  of  the  will. 

I  reserve  for  another  occasion  the  application  of  the  two 
principles  to  such  questions  as  those  of  social,  intellectual  and 
moral  life  of  individuals  and  societies.  Many  of  these  phe- 
nomena may  readily  be  explained  as  necessary  effects  of  the 
structure  of  the  human  body  and  of  its  relation  to  the  environ- 
ment, even  should  we  hold  to  the  law  of  causality;  but  there 
always  remains  a  large  number  of  actions  for  which  only  the 
freedom  of  the  will  may  be  accounted  the  real  cause;  not  the 
great  elementary  movements,  such  as  revolutions  of  oppressed 
peoples  driven  to  their  action  by  the  growth  of  irresistible  feel- 
ings, but  the  occurances  of  every  day  life,  the  reasonable  acquisi- 
tion of  knowledge  and  choice  as  factor  in  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence. 

What  an  enormous  difference  makes  the  comprehension 
of  these  principles  as  the  dominating  j)i*ineiples  of  all  that 
occurs  in  the  world,  when  compared  with  the  old  materialistic 
idea  of  Necessity!    Instead  of  a  calculated  machine,  the  millions 


of  wheels  of  which  move  necessarily  in  a  mathematically  defined 
way,  we  have  before  us  a  living  being  with  ever  growing  possi- 
bilities. And  if  an  intelligence,  such  as  Laplace  speaks  of, 
would  at  a  given  moment  comprehend  and  know  all  the  causes 
of  the  phenomena  that  take  place,  it  would  not  be  able  to  pre- 
dict the  future  as  the  necessary  effects  of  the  given  causes,  but 
would  see  in  amazement  and  admiration,  how  many  are  the 
possibilities  that  may  take  place.  Well  could  it  isolate  a  certain 
group  of  causes  actuated  by  enormous,  irresistible  forces  and 
predict  such  effects  as  the  revolutions  of  celestial  bodies.  But 
it  would  be  at  a  loss  to  predict  the  actions  of  one  even  of  all  the 
millions  of  intellect*  moved  by  millions  of  causes  to  reasoning, 
because  here  begins  the  reign  of  Freedom. 

13  December,  1005.  Short  Hills,  New  Jersey 


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